Giftcard Outstanding Report

[BonTempsBoutiq]

I have found a report called Gift Card Outstanding before in my Square dashboard, but I am unable to find it currently. Has this feature been removed? My accountant needs this report to balance my books. TIA.

[TheRealChipA]

Good catch @BonTempsBoutiq  I’m going to tag a few Square Moderators to follow up with the reporting team. 

@_Violet @Summer2024 @Katie_SQ @Lou8 @Breffni @Sammie_C where did this report go? Why did it go? Can we get it back?

i use this once a year to verify my GC liability account. It might seem like a little thing but it it is a great double check on my work. 

[Sammie_C · Accepted solution]

Hi @BonTempsBoutiq, thank you for your post and welcome to the Square Community! Also, appreciate you tagging us, @TheRealChipA!

I went ahead and escalated this over to our eCommerce team and they said you are able to find the Total Outstanding gift card amount by going to your Dashboard > Payments > Gift Cards > Overview (refer to red highlighted section of screenshot). Here is a direct link as well.

I hope that this helps, but if you are looking for something different, please let me know and I can take another look for you.

[BonTempsBoutiq]

Thank you, I think that is what I am looking for.

[TheRealChipA]

Thanks, as always, @Sammie_C.  Yes, that helps.  But, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t point out the elephant in the room.  IMHO (and I’ve never really been humble, ha) when you folks make changes like this, SOMEONE needs to re-direct us.  In this case, that report that was deleted should have (for a month or so?) taken us to a “report has been deleted, find the information you are looking for here” type of message.  You all have done that before when you moved functions from one place to another (for example, fulfillment methods).  It is ALWAYS jarring and unnerving when things we’ve used for years all of a sudden go missing.

Food for thought.

[WildsideNails]

I do not think this actually helps.  The amount highlighted is as of the date you are running the report.  You are not able to change to look at a specific date range, such as what as the balance on 12/31/2024.  On the accounting side, we really need to have a report that shows all gift cards with an outstanding balance on a specific date.  We also need to know the date the gift card was purchased.  Once the card reaches 3 years old the IRS requires companies to that balance into income.  

[TheRealChipA]

@WildsideNails As you can see, this thread was not started about finding GC balance AS OF a certain date.  The OP was asking about current balances, so this did help for that.  There is a way to get the balance as of a certain date, however, but it involves a little math.

First, get the current number as @Sammie_C mentioned above.  Then, at the top you will see a little blue “Reports.”  Click it. That will take you to a GC report, showing current year.  You can run that starting one day after you need to know GC liability as of, then just subtract the net amount from shown from your current amount.

I have a GC Outstanding account in my financial software.  When I book my sales each day, I adjust that to reflect new cards sold and cards used.  So, now, my accounting software always has the current outstanding amount.

Lastly, to your IRS comment, that’s the best reason that I started booking all GC sales as income immediately.  I’d rather take the tax hit now, knowing that I’m going to have to eventually anyway.  If I do it as cards are sold, I never have to think about it again.